1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control system of a robot cleaner, which performs cleaning while autonomously moving through a region to be cleaned.
2. Description of the Related Art
A manual vacuum cleaner sucks up dust and other small particles of dirt, and collects the dust and particles of dirt in an internal container while being moved by a user through a region to be cleaned. According to a manual vacuum cleaner with separate components of a cleaner body and a vacuum head connected to each other by a flexible hose, the cleaner body is drawn to a desired position when a user moves while gripping the vacuum head. Thus, manual vacuum cleaners are inconvenient because a user must move through the region to be cleaned while holding the manual vacuum cleaner itself or the vacuum head. Further, manual vacuum cleaners are also problematic because noise is generated due to an operation of a motor that generates suction force, and the user has to do the actual moving of the manual vacuum and the cleaning work.
In view of the above-described problems presented by manual vacuum cleaners, a variety of automatic cleaners capable of performing cleaning operations while autonomously moving through a region to be cleaned, such as robot cleaners, have been proposed and developed.
Since the robot cleaners are not provided with a function to determine the shape of the region to be cleaned, the robot cleaners move through the region according to previously input data, or the robot cleaners autonomously move through the region using sensors capable of detecting obstructions.
When the area to be cleaned by the conventional robot cleaner is small, the conventional robot cleaner can be used without causing a burden to the user. However, when the area to be cleaned is large, it becomes necessary to divide the large area into smaller regions rather than assign the entire large area to the conventional robot cleaner. That is, in a case where a particular region of the given large area contains dust or other particles of dirt, the conventional robot cleaner can only clean the divided local regions of the given large area.
Further, the user is inconvenienced when a large area has to be subdivided into smaller areas because the conventional robot cleaner requires the user to input data in order to set the regions, and because it is difficult to precisely set the region, the setting of the region is usually based on subjective estimate of the user. Accordingly, the conventional robot cleaner presents a problem, as the conventional robot cleaner is not able to easily clean local regions of a given large area.